Post Ghana, Pre Acceptance.

I have no idea if anyone will ever read this. I don't care.

I am home, and have been for a long time. I've settled in to my apartment at school, returned to work, and even written a paper (who knew, Ghana didn't totally strip me of the capacity to think and produce work).

Am I supposed to feel good about being here?

I got a call from Ghana today, from John, my crazy Jesus freak teacher friend who says "praise Jesus" after almost every sentence, who has no attention span (or doesn't understand what I"m saying) and changed the subject every time I say something. It was wonderful- I didn't realized I missed him and his fiance Sara, or visiting his small two room, electric blue flat to listening to the latest cuts from his ever in progress album. They haven't married yet, and they still plan to come to the states as soon as the album is finished, so he may preach at the church that has invited him. This isn't relevant information to anyone but me, but to detail everything we talked about only underscores how much I've realized lately that I desperately miss Ghana. It have drove me crazy then, that I could never predict when I would be harassed for being a white woman, that I never knew if I had evening plans, or if I'd just go to bed at 9, I never knew what the hell I was doing in the next hour, unless I was really stuck in traffic. I miss public transportation, I miss extremely questionable food, filthy yet deserted beaches, naked children, anti-intellectual classes- I say everything in the negative because I didn't appreciate it when I had it. Now I live an extremely predictable, stable life. I'm happy, I have purpose, but only because I am completely redefined in my goals and ambitions and spirit because of Ghana. I miss the orphanage with everything thing I have. I want to be there again, to hold the babies, and feel like my live really has meaning, beyond all of my goals and the places where I think I want to go in life. I want to sit all morning in MaxMart, drinking coffee straight from heaven, ammusing the waiter, eating kippe, and watching the always pissy looking Lebonese woman look over her shop.

I want to be there all over again but I'm too afriad to go alone. Will I ever actually put myself there? I have so many other countries I want to go, my goal in life for the next few years is to get out and explore as many new places as I have time to delve into. Not fast ditch, Euro trip backpacking style. I want to really go and live in these places for several months at a time. I feel really strongly about where I'm going- I'm applying to go to graduate school in Toronto and do research in an Immigration and Settlement Studies program (no, it doesn't exist elsewhere). Maybe that will lead me to more grad school in sociology- but I hope more that it will keep taking me abroad, that I can work for international organizations helping immigrants settle in and explore their new territory- kind of like Kwese and Abena and Janet did for all of us. Regardless, someday I will have to commit the money to return to Ghana. Part of my heart is there right now in those childeren, at Natdat Memorial School, strapped into a trotro, eating a pineapple, drinking boxed Sangria from a convience store with my friends, hiking through the jungle, soaked in a canoe, crying in the slave castles, and in a chain smoking cheif who wants to save the world while listening to the futbol match.

I want to build homes like Ghana for myself allover the world, to find new peices of myself in each place, to be a better person for it, a more caring woman, and to find the best place for me. I love PLU, it has been my home. But I am ready to go again.